Irish Design Culture And Me

Blog 7 – (Irish) Culture in Design

A country’s design culture is something that runs deep between society, its local materials and its history. When trying to describe a country’s design culture we can often lead to stereotypes such as German efficiency, Italian flair, and French beauty. We assume all things German are designed like their BMW, all things Italian have the style of the Ferrari, and everything French is beautiful like its fashion houses such as Saint Laurent.

When we reflect on Irish design culture, it is not as obvious. Perhaps we think of the famous Aran Island jumper. In today’s world, we can see that Irish designers and creatives are having the most impact on the world through film and animation.

‘ Irish animation studios are working with some of the biggest names in global broadcasting—including Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and the BBC—making animated series that is shown to millions of children all over the world every week. ‘

Screen Ireland (https://www.screenireland.ie/industry-insights/about-the-animation-industry)

I am grateful that I have always been surrounded by Ireland’s Design Culture. My mother is an artist. Something that would stand out to me growing up in Belgium was that my mother was an IRISH artist. She would have exhibitions along with other Irish artists in Brussels. Brussels is a hugely dense multi-cultural space and it was always fascinating visiting these exhibitions and seeing a cluster of all these Irish people, and Irish artists, in one space. I remember I would go around looking at all of their paintings thinking, ‘Isn’t it cool to see other Irish people, here in Brussels, and what they do every day here in Belgium is paint and create’. Looking back, and deciphering those simple thoughts and emotions, I believe I just thought it was cool to see Irish people present and share their ‘Irish-ness’.

Ireland has made a big push on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) in the last decade. This has been extended to be known as ‘STEAM’ and includes Arts education. As we have learned early on in the Product Design course. Art and design are also significant in the professional world. Particularly if we as Irish people want to create a design culture and share more of our ‘Irish-ness’.

‘STEAM’ is a significant step in laying a foundation for creating a design culture. This is something my father has actually been involved in recently as a primary school teacher. He recognised the need for primary school students to have an earlier engagement with STEM subjects in particular, and to understand their cross-disciplinary relationships also. He did this by setting up his company COG & AXLE. With this company, he created the story of Henry’s Piano, in which Henry buys a piano and we follow his use of different STEM principles to transport the piano from the Music shop, all the way to his high apartment across town.

I am very lucky to have grown up surrounded by such creative and open-minded parents, especially with their appreciation for well designed and functioning products. This was paired with an upbringing abroad in Brussels where I would just see so many cultures interact with one another. It was also an extremely historic city. I remember Sunday mornings going to the street sales where people would be selling old mid-century furniture and old household products such as radios and typewriters.

This is perhaps something I must reconnect with going forward. Looking forward, I should expose myself to different cultures. I always want to learn more about design each day, but I will challenge myself to not just listen to another American podcast on design but see if I can find contemporary German, French or Italian ones instead. I need to brush up on my French anyways…